Sword of Stalingrad

[1] On 29 November 1943, it was presented to Marshal Joseph Stalin by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill at a ceremony during the Tehran Conference, in the presence of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and an honour guard.

The acid-etched inscription in Russian and English reads: ГРАЖДАНАМ СТАЛИНГРАДА • КРЕПКИМ КАК СТАЛЬ • ОТ КОРОЛЯ ГЕОРГА VI • В ЗНАК ГЛУБОКОГО ВОСХИЩЕНИЯ БРИТАНСКОГО НАРОДА[a]

The Russian wording was cleared by Sir Ellis Hovell Minns, a Slavonic iconographer and the President of Pembroke College, Cambridge.

[6] The Wilkinson Sword Company was the fabricator, with the principal craftsmen being swordsmiths Tom Beasley and Sid Rouse, the calligrapher M. C. Oliver and silversmith Corp. Leslie G. Durbin from the Royal Air Force.

[citation needed] The official presentation was made while the Big Three wartime leaders were meeting in the Soviet embassy at the November 1943 Tehran Conference, where the final plans for Operation Overlord were being settled.

[8] After a three-hour delay, the principals and their delegations gathered in the large conference room of the embassy with a British and Soviet honour guard lining either side of the hall.